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Internationalizing Graduate Education

Ranked 38th on the prestigious Jiao Tong University list of the world’s top 100 universities, the University of Maryland is a prime school of choice for international graduate students and international institutional partners. The UMD Graduate School works closely with leading institutions in Asia, Latin America, and Europe to provide graduate students in the US and abroad with enriching exchanges that broaden students’ knowledge, perspective, and professional networks.

The International Graduate Research Fellowship (IGRF), one of the Graduate School’s signature initiatives, is a perfect example. The IGRF reinforces existing collaborations between UMD faculty and their colleagues abroad offering a unique opportunity for students to join ongoing research projects for one to three months. These fellowships not only help Maryland students conduct research abroad, but also enable students from countries other than the US to conduct research at UMD.

The Graduate School also encourages and supports joint graduate seminars and research projects with international peer institutions to foster collaboration between graduate faculty and students. Since 2013, UMD and the University of Tübingen (Germany) have collaborated on five major research and graduate training projects in neuroscience, cognitive science, and the biomedical sciences. In 2014, the anthropology department at UMD and the English department at the University College Cork (Ireland) developed an exciting transatlantic and interdisciplinary research project on renowned abolitionist, author, and orator Frederick Douglass. In 2015, Saul Sosnowski, professor of Spanish and Portuguese, is teaching a joint seminar with the Universidad Pontificia de Chile and Universidad National de Cordoba, Argentina. We are also exploring opportunities in Asia and Latin America.

Furthermore, as a member of Universitats 21, a global network of research universities, UMD enables doctoral students to present their research overseas and participate in international competitions.